Two people, two opinions, two voices, one blog - how closely aligned can two moral compasses be when one believes in God and one believes in tea?

Wednesday, November 24, 2010

Watch All Of This

I am shaking with anger. Literally shaking right now.

What follows is a Panorama investigation into the fact that some Muslim-run schools have been teaching anti-Semitism and death penalties for homosexuality, among other shit, to kids as young as six. As the report says, it's not just Islamic schools that do it, evangelical Christian and ultra-orthodox Jewish schools do this shit too - but the report focuses on Muslim ones mainly.

The Youtube comments for these vids bordered on National Front rhetoric at some points. If you do watch them, watch all of them and pay real attention. Bigoted shit will not be tolerated here.

5 comments:

You feel like you need a shower? I don't know whether I want to punch something or curl up and cry. I notice that a lot of the communities and schools who run these Islamic faith schools are from the Middle East, where they still practice the medieval teachings of Islam and Sharia Law. It baffles me that the so-called religious leaders who preach this much anti-Western bullshit and hatred could be allowed to stay in England.

What really gets me is the segregation; I know first hand how damaging that is, given I hadn't moved to England until I was 10 years old. Even though I was taught in what was basically a Church school, the student population was largely Islamic as the other communities were so small anyway, so the religious studies were all about Islam. They only taught prayers and stuff, but I failed those classes anyway, which may have been my saving grace in some cases. In fact, apart from being told that the Church part of the school was off-limits to us pupils, I had no idea what other religions there were out there. In fact, I can pinpoint when I started actively learning about faiths other than Islam, and that was when one of the few non-Muslim friends I had in school lent me a children's book about Jesus. And you know what? That started me on the road to actually thinking outside of Islam and being open minded. My dad and his dad would always help as well with learning when we made our annual Christmas trips to England.

The segregated learning I had though did do some damage - when we permanently moved to England, I was so scared and timid about being around lots of "White People". And my mum's misunderstanding of how religious lessons were taught in England meant I was still segregated for half of Year 7 because she specifically requested to the school I be taken out of RE lessons and study Islam on my own in the teacher's office. WORSE 6 months of my life, rounded off by a wonderful bit of racist bullying by an Irish Cathloic girl, of all people.

Basically, I have very little faith in Islamic faith schools, especially ones that don't intergrate with other minorities in the community. I know that the segregation does absolutely nothing to help children learn and only serves to fuel fear and/or hate, which won't be good for this country in the long run.